Small businesses relying on shipping and receiving products have had a terrible year. In November 2024, a strike by Canada Post workers caused an estimated $1.6 billion in business disruptions. Then in January 2025, the on-again, off-again tariff war with the United States created costly havoc and instability within the private market, which continues today. Now, Canadian businesses are bracing for another blow as Canada Post workers threaten to leave the job again as soon as May 22.
It’s time for the federal government to say enough is enough and impose radical reforms upon Canada’s postal services. Neither the Crown corporation nor its workforce appears capable of adapting the organization to cope with modern needs, and the costs have become unsustainable.
The only people who think postal workers hold leverage over Canadians anymore in a strike situation are the postal union leaders. Another postal strike will cause mass annoyance, but it won’t bring the country to a standstill. It will only speed the demise of the corporation.
The path to reforming Canada Post is simple, though it will be painful for the workers losing jobs. All direct-to-home deliveries must end. There is no need to have postal workers walking and delivering door-to-door for businesses or households. Most of what is delivered these days is advertising products, which could be delivered by a private carrier. Centralized post boxes already service over 60 percent of the country without issue. It’s time to make that 100 percent.
Mail no longer needs to be delivered five days a week. One or two days of delivery per week will suffice for businesses and households. If a document must be delivered in a shorter period, a private service can do so, or a premium should be paid for the delivery.
By ending door-to-door delivery and cutting the days of service, Canada Post can reduce its workforce by over half. Labour is the prime expense for the corporation.
Job losses are never a thing to be celebrated, but we must be realistic. Demand for mail services has dropped too quickly to reduce the workforce through hiring freezes and attrition. The number of staff must be cut quickly. Postal workers had a good gig. The compensation and benefits were generous for a relatively unskilled trade, and they have a generous pension plan. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
Canada Post should be scaled down into a service designed to reach underserved populations in isolated regions. Many people in Canada in rural zones don’t have access to the range of private services that urban citizens do, and cutting the postal service suddenly would cause undue economic stress.
There may have been a future for Canada Post in taking part in the growing parcel market, but corporate inflexibility prevented it from becoming a competitive player. Private services from Amazon and other companies, such as FedEx, have filled the parcel delivery market efficiently, and there is no need to have a Crown corporation trying to barge into it.
The leaders of the postal union must read the writing on the wall. Instead of pushing for job protections, banning automation, and increasing compensation for workers, they should be lobbying for transitional training and accommodations for workers as their jobs inevitably disappear. Fighting against the natural transition of the industry to date has already ensured the process will be more painful than it had to be. Acceptance and pragmatic policies for workers are what is needed now.
It’s absurd that postal workers are considering a strike when their employer is in a spiral of decline. Negotiations in the coming strike should be focused on how to find new employment for workers rather than locking them into a dead-end career path.
If the Canada Post workers walk out this spring as they are threatening, it will be the beginning of the end of Canada Post.
